Real ID Act a Real Intrusion On
Rights, Privacy

By BOB
BARR

12/02/08 "The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution"
06/02/08 -- - -With the
announcement last month by Homeland
Security chief Michael Chertoff of
the final implementing regulations
for the much-delayed Real ID Act,
the debate over this thinly veiled
national identification card project
moved into high gear.

The
federal government for several years
now has been fighting a guerrilla
action with citizen groups and a
number of state legislatures over
imposing on the states and the
citizenry this privacy-intrusive and
costly mandate. With the
announcement Jan. 11 of the final
regulations, the debate is fully
joined and pits those who support
the principle of states’ rights
against the legions of Big
Government advocates.

Big
Government advocates are personified
by the current Bush administration,
favoring central control of
virtually every facet of activity in
our society, from education to
transportation and from the plumbing
in our bathrooms to the bulbs in our
lamps. While the Real ID debate
shares some elements with its sister
debate concerning voter ID, mixing
the two as if two sides of the same
coin dilutes the host of fundamental
constitutional concerns and
responsibilities affected by the
Real ID Act program now being forced
down the throats of the states.

Let’s leave aside for the moment the
underlying federalism question —
where does the federal government
get the power to dictate to the
states who can get a driver’s
license? — to focus on civil
liberties that would be undercut by
the Real ID Act.

If,
as proposed in the law, a person
must have a Real ID Act-compliant
card in order to access a federal
building, access any regulated or
interstate mode of transportation,
or obtain any federal benefit, then
we have surrendered to the federal
government (that is, federal
bureaucrats) the power to deny
citizens all manner of activities
guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.
Consider:

A
person not possessing a Real ID
Act-compliant identification
card could not enter any federal
building, or an office of his or
her congressman or senator or
the U.S. Capitol. This
effectively denies that person
their fundamental rights to
assembly and to petition the
government as guaranteed in the
First Amendment.

A
person seeking to exercise their
right to keep and bear arms as
guaranteed by the Second
Amendment could henceforth be
denied that ability if they do
not possess a precious Real ID
card, because the federal
bureaucracy known as the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms
and Explosives probably will
decree that such a form of
identification is necessary to
meet federal requirements for
purchasing a firearm.

Very possibly the Real ID card
will be required in order to
vote in any election for federal
office.

A
veteran may be denied access to
a VA hospital because he or she
lacks the requisite Real ID
card, perhaps because they did
not have the money required to
purchase it or because they
could not locate the background
forms the Department of Homeland
Security required to obtain one.

A
business traveler, unable to
afford to travel by private jet,
is denied the ability to make a
living because their job
requires air travel and they do
not have a Real ID card — even
though they demonstrably pose no
danger whatsoever to their
fellow travelers.

Even though individual states,
such as Georgia, may provide
greater legal protection for
private information of its
residents than other states or
the federal government, this
will mean nothing in the Real ID
Act world, because all the data
under that law will be subject
to the lower federal standards,
thereby subjecting residents to
a higher likelihood of identity
theft than they would risk under
the laws of their state.

And, they would have no recourse
to correct erroneous data, or
prevent identity theft pursuant
to the Real ID regulations.

On
the other side of the ledger,
arguing in favor of this intrusive
and expensive federal mandate, are
hollow promises of “security” — not
freedom or liberty — but “safety,”
the promise of which trumps all else
in this post-9/11 world, at least
for this Congress and this
administration. I, for one, commend
the state of Georgia and those other
states that are standing against
this assault on states’ rights and
the Bill of Rights.

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